The Origin and Development of Eurythmy 1912–1918

GA 277a — 21 February 1915, Bremen

Notes on the Development of Eurythmy

Lory Maier-Smits, notes from 1965; with additions from “Erste Lebenskeime der Eurythmie” (First Seeds of Eurythmy)

It was not until early 1915 that she succeeded in obtaining what was known as “renaturalization” and thus a German passport. And so I was able to participate in the “Instructions for the Spiritual Shaping of Language Forms,” as Dr. Steiner called the course held in Dornach in August and September, and also speak with him twice beforehand and show him what and how I had been working in the meantime. I must now tell you about these two occasions.

The first time [in Bremen] did not go very well. During the previous lonely months, I had been studying Goethe's “Mahomet's Song” and was able to show it to Dr. Steiner and Mrs. Marie von Sivers-Steiner. For the passage: “Jünglingsfrisch / Tanzt er aus der Wolke / Auf die Marmorklippen nieder” (Youthful and fresh / He dances out of the cloud / Down onto the marble cliffs), I had chosen a winding serpentine as the form, and in order to make it as “youthful and fresh” as possible, I had started with a single turn, but — Dr. Steiner interrupted me very energetically: "Now you're starting this bad habit too and showing yourself from behind! That is completely impossible, you must never do that!“ He went on to talk about this lack of style, which had recently been introduced on stages that ”wanted to be modern.“ How shocked and perplexed I was when, a little later in Dornach, for a poem by Christian Morgenstern, ”Swallows,“ he directed our ”round dance" forms without drawing in the simplest way and, when the text said: “making short, quick arcs,” he had all ten or twelve swallows run backward with just one “short, quick arc” of their noses—and we all stood with our backs to the audience! And later, the ‘crows’ in Nietzsche's “Vereinsamt” had to stand like that from the outset and make all their movements backward. It was only during a third “turning of the back,” which he specified for the refrain repeated after each stanza in Nietzsche's poem “Dichters Berufung” (The Poet's Calling), that I thought I understood when this “showing of the back” was to be used. The refrain reads: “Yes, sir, you are a poet / The woodpecker shrugs its shoulders!”

But my “showing my back” wasn't the only thing that happened that day! Then came the line: “Rejoice again / To the sky!” When I pronounced the word “sky” with a powerful ‘ö’ and stretched both arms upward, stretching all ten fingers, Mrs. Marie von Sivers-Steiner asked in astonishment, “FHammel?” And when I replied, “But I'm stretching all ten fingers!” she said very firmly, " I only see an angle!“ Seeing the look of concern on my face, Rudolf Steiner explained to me that it had become apparent that it was good to pay attention not only to the experience of a sound, but also to the form corresponding to the sound, i.e., for a, the angle; for i, ”stretching in a line“; for #, a parallel line, because the audience needs to be able to perceive the ”sound forms." “And that is why you should also avoid the i movement you made with the word ‘giant shoulders’, namely arms stretched out completely horizontally. You could make this movement as an i if you could make the rest of your body invisible. But as it is, the strongest impression on the audience is a cross. So, avoid this i.”

Very soon, two to three months later, this “i to be avoided” had become the big e! This stronger emphasis on the “sound forms” – adopted quite one-sidedly by some eurythmists – had not only led to misunderstandings, but also to a certain mistrust towards me, and when Dr. Steiner asked me one day: “Why do you look so sad?”, I told him about it. His reaction was very simple and natural: “Yes, of course, but with you I wanted to start with the feeling first!” Imagine what would have become of eurythmy if he had only said at the beginning: “a is an angle, e is a cross, i is a line, o is a curve, and ” is a parallel!“ In Dornach, the expression ”occult signals" was once coined!

Later, perhaps two years later, I received some very “alarming” news from Dornach. It said: a is not defense, but wonder; above all, a is an angle, i is a line only in one direction, " is a parallel, etc. Not only I, but above all many of our members were very upset and reproachful toward me. They felt that my statements in class posed a danger, which has now fortunately been eliminated, that “their etheric bodies would be corrupted and damaged, and that I would play them into the hands of Lucifer while they were still alive!” At the next opportunity, I took courage and asked Rudolf Steiner why this had been the case. His answer was very simple: “Because I wanted to appeal to your feelings.” Yes, and with the personality who was in charge of teaching in Dornach at the time, didn't he have to want that? And why not? This personality [Tatiana Kisseleff] was a much more mature person than I was, and she was Russian. What had to be awakened and cultivated in me as a very young German person was already so richly present in this woman, simply because of her ethnicity, that it only needed to be shaped and defined.